In recent years, distribution and sale of digital content on high-capacity portable media such as DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) and BD (Blu-Ray Disc) have become commonplace. In the video game industry also, many games are currently sold on such portable media, and nearly all console game systems are equipped with a disc-reading device.
However, when game systems use this type of general-purpose media, it is possible to use a general-purpose application on a PC (Personal Computer) to make an unauthorized copy of the media.
To solve this problem, Patent Document 1 discloses technology in which a server manages a pair of IDs, namely a disc ID that is unique to a disc and a device ID that is unique to a device. When the disc is to be used, the disc ID and the device ID are sent to the server via a network, and the server authenticates whether the use is authorized.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-334511